GS Financial WorkbenchSM Breaks New Ground in Firm’s Digital Offerings to Clients

The launch of GS Financial Workbench^SM in 1995 marks the firm’s first significant effort to share some of its internal technologies, including tools, data, and analytics, with institutional clients.

In the early 1990s, Goldman Sachs undertook a number of technology-based initiatives to enhance firmwide risk management, efficiency and control, and to elevate client service through connectivity and the electronic provision of high-value-added services. On the first of these fronts, the firm rolled out Securities Database (SecDB) in 1993. This groundbreaking, integrated risk management platform was capable of aggregating trading risks across the entire firm. Traders used SecDB to price securities, analyze potential trades, and monitor risk.

At the same time that Goldman Sachs was deploying innovative technology across internal functions, the firm also recognized the value of being able to connect with clients and share information and ideas with them electronically. The firm’s first major initiative in this area was the launch in 1995 of GS Financial WorkbenchSM, one of the first sophisticated financial analysis websites. Accessible online by both employees and institutional clients, GS Financial WorkbenchSM was a central resource for downloading research reports, accessing earnings and valuation models, submitting trades, monitoring accounts, building and viewing presentations, calculating derivative prices and viewing market data.

In 2003, Goldman Sachs launched an Institutional Portal, later renamed to GS360, and GS Financial Workbench^SM was rolled into this platform in 2007. GS360 was a multi-product platform offering research and other services to institutional clients. In 2014, a new platform called Marquee launched, followed by a GS Research portal in 2017. Built leveraging the leading technology of the firm’s proprietary SecDB system, Marquee used application program interfaces (APIs) to tie in with end users’ own systems, enabling clients to access the same pricing data, risk models, and proprietary datasets used by Goldman Sachs traders and risk managers.

Recognizing the importance of client-facing systems like Marquee, the firm took the step of organizing its technology resources within two distinct teams in 2014: the Enterprise Platforms team and the Client Platforms team. The Enterprise Platforms team was responsible for Goldman Sachs’ core internal systems, including SecDB, and key architectural components of data, workflow, and development. The Client Platforms team would unify the firm’s efforts around user experience, web deployment, mobile computing, and desktop tooling.

GS Financial Workbench^SM represented an important milestone in Goldman Sachs’ digital journey. It laid the groundwork for a series of robust client-facing tools, applications, and services to come and exemplified the firm’s commitment to investing in technology to better support its business and clients around the world.

 

This article was originally published as part of a series commemorating the 150th anniversary of Goldman Sachs’ founding in 1869.